A member of Congress has suggested that the White Cliffs of Dover tumbling into the English Channel was causing rising sea levels.

Related: Everglades under threat as Florida's mangroves face death by rising sea level

Republican Mo Brooks of Alabama pushed back at the notion that rising sea levels were the result of global warming in a hearing of the House Science, Space and Technology on Wednesday.

Instead, Brooks pointed to silt deposition as well as erosion as a cause of rising sea levels. Questioning scientist Phil Duffy of the Woods Hole Research Center, Brooks postulated that silt and mud washed by rivers into the ocean caused water levels to rise as it settled on the sea floor. “Now you have got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up,” he said.

And many people in his district are nodding their heads in agreement right now.

As one who went to grade school and high school in Alabama, there is a strong reason I now reside in a university town in New Mexico. And it is still bad enough that many of the faculty here still think the Republican tenets are good.

Rocks sink to the bottom so the level goes up. Ice floats on the surface, so the level stays the same.

It depends whether the ice was already floating or not...if it falls off a glacier (over land) into the sea then the level goes up whether it melts or not, because of the displacement caused by the volume of ice. If it was already floating then the level doesn't go up whether it melts or not... (disregarding expansion and factors like the ground rising once it's not under pressure from the ice).

I know you probably already know that and are making a joke, but it does seem to cause confusion and your sarcasm was subtle enough that people might take it at face value!